Digital Crucible
by Stratagemini
Summary: War is a crucible. When Koushiro Izumi was sucked into the Digital World he was already well aware of the likelihood he would not leave it alive. Now thrust into a war he didn't ask for Izzy struggles to survive. But you can't win a war without losses. Adventure/Tamers Fusion.
1. Prologue: Welcome to the Jungle

Chapter 1:

It all started when kids' bodies started falling from the sky. No one was certain where they were coming from, there weren't any planes or helicopters flying over Tokyo when the bodies fell, and a couple had fallen in parks and the middle of intersections with no tall buildings around them. No one could explain it. The police tried to hush it up, but every few days a bunch of kids would disappear all at once and then reappear a few days later, dead and falling out of a clear blue sky.

I only know about it because I saw it happen. I was walking home after the last day of school before vacation, when suddenly I saw it, a kid fall from a clear blue sky. He was dead on impact, but the fall didn't kill him. His arm was gone, chewed off by some monstrous beast, claws had torn his chest open and his ribs were clearly visible, cracked and broken, through the tears in his flesh. In his remaining arm he was clutching a small pale green device, it looked like a square with all the corners excised, and there was a smaller square screen in the middle of it slowly going dark. There seemed to be some buttons and what looked like an antenna too, but I didn't get a good enough look to tell exactly because a few seconds after the kid's body hit the ground the screen went completely dark and the entire device broke apart into some sort of multi-colored dust that floated away on a non-existent wind, swirling back up into the sky.

I recognized the kid. He went to my school, he hadn't shown up today, but I'd seen him yesterday. He had seemed perfectly fine then. I stared at the kid's broken form. There was no question, he had been ripped apart by a large animal. I ran.

There was nothing I could do for him, he was already dead, and I could hear sirens approaching. The smell of blood and death filled my nose as I fled. There was nothing I could do. I kept repeating it to myself, over and over again. There was nothing I could do. I slept fitfully that night. My classmate's body haunting my dreams as the memory of the incident replayed in my head. It wasn't until a few days latter that I discovered what had really happened to him, and even now I wish I hadn't.

My name is Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi, and I am trapped in the digital world.

* * *

The forest was flat. That was the only thought that got him past the pain, past the realization of just what he was holding in his hand. The forest was flat. It existed in all three dimensions, but somehow there was something flat about it anyway. The leaves on the trees didn't droop or shift, they didn't shine in the sunlight and their edges were blocky and pixelated, as if some programmer tried to make some trees and failed to render the details properly. The forest is flat, Izzy thought to himself, and I'm in big trouble.

The buzzing started off small, almost an afterthought, distant and not important. A high pitched whine echoing through the fake trees. But it was getting closer, and Izzy could hear loud crashes joining the buzzing as it approached. It sounded almost like a gigantic animal thundering through the fake forest in his direction. The kid's body had looked like it was torn apart by some sort of animal didn't it? Trying not to think about the thing in his hand, Izzy started running.

* * *

Wormmon was having a bad day. Wormmon had heard all the stories about chosen children. He had even seen one help his V-mon partner evolve into an adult level digimon in order to overcome a seadramon. So when Wormmon had seen the pillar of light in the distance he knew it had to have something to do with one of the chosen, maybe even a new arrival who hadn't yet bonded to a digimon. It was only after he had started running towards the pillar of light that things had taken a turn for the worse. Now he was scrambling for his life frantically trying to evade the kuwagamon trying to eat him, and the giant flying beetle digimon was getting closer.

Just then, Wormmon saw it, a human. A chosen child. It was smaller than the last chosen he saw, dressed in yellow and red and staring dumbly straight at him. More importantly however, he didn't have a digimon anywhere near him. This was both good and bad. Good because it meant that wormmon's goal of bonding to a chosen child was looking not just viable but almost certain now. Of course, that brought wormmon to the bad, the reason his goal was almost certain was that in the absence of a chosen partner, bonding together was the only way to fight kuwagamon, and there was a very real possibility that this battle would lead immediately to their extremely grisly deaths.

* * *

"What in the world?" Izzy cried out as he saw the giant green insect leaping at him. There was no way something as small as that was making the sound which was even now resonating in his bones.

"There's no time!" the insect shouted. If it weren't for the clear note of panic in the thing's voice, Izzy would have started to investigate the phenomenon immediately.

"Run! We need to get away from Kuwagamon!" the green creature continued. It didn't take much thought to realize that Kuwagamon was probably whatever was making that noise, and whatever had frightened the creature into panicked flight.

Izzy wasn't sure what possessed him to do it, but when the creature ran past him, Izzy bent to pick it up instead of fleeing on his own. "What is a Kuwagamon?" Izzy asked, as he started to run as fast as his legs could carry him.

The creature didn't respond, the thing, whatever it was, was staring at the device clutched in Izzy's hand. The same hand cradling the creature's upper body as they ran.

"You really are one of the chosen aren't you?" the humongous insect asked, a note of wonder in his voice.

"The chosen? What's going on? You know what this thing is?" Izzy slowed down, the prospect of knowledge usurping his focus on flight.

The creature's eyes widened. "No! Don't slow down! Kuwagamon is right behind us! We haven't bonded! We can't fight him now!"

Izzy stopped in the middle of a forest clearing, confused, "Bonded? Kuwagamon? Chosen? Just what is going on here?" the humming was louder now, it felt like his entire body was vibrating, but it didn't seem as pressing as the questions in front of him.

"He's almost here! We need to run! Don't stop now! He'll kill us both!" Izzy had never realized that insects, if that really was what the creature was, were capable of hyper-ventilating.

The creature's obvious panic was enough to start Izzy moving again, but it was too late, no sooner had he taken the first step then he heard the roar behind him as something broke through the canopy.

"What in the world is that?!" Izzy cried out in alarm. It looked bore a vague resemblance a Hercules beetle, at least, it had horns and wings like a beetle. But the resemblance ended there. Whatever it was it was bigger than a car, and colored a bright cherry red that should have made it impossible to hide in the forest it just exited. It had long spindly limbs with claws on the end of them, four of them, not counting wings, and a shiny carapace. Whatever it was it was no beetle.

The creature in Izzy's arms moaned in despair, "That... is Kuwagamon." Suddenly Izzy realized why the green creature was so insistent that they flee. Kuwagamon was a monster, it looked like it was ripped directly out of someone's nightmares. Kuwagamon roared.

"That... is not not a good sound." Izzy stated, backing away from the giant red monster. Things did not look good for either Izzy or the smaller green insec creature; they were in a clearing roughly thirty feet in diameter, completely visible from the air. The nearest cover was almost fifteen feet away, and there was no way to get to it before Kuwagamon swooped down on them, but there was also no other choice than to try anyway. Izzy dashed forward, running as fst as he could toward the edge of the clearing. The buzzing turned murderously loud as Kuwagamon dove at the redheaded boy.

"Sticky Net!" Despite the swiftly approaching peril, Izzy couldn't help but take a second to wonder just how the creature in his arms talk while shooting a silken net from its mouth.

* * *

Wormmon watched in horror as his attack connected, covering kuwagamon's eyes completely in webbing to no effect at all; the red beetle-like digimon was still diving straight at them. And now the chosen child was staring at him in shock. Using all of his strength, Wormmon jumped out of the child's arms straight at its face, knocking it down just enough to dodge the bulk of Kuwagamon's attack.

* * *

Izzy's world exploded in pain as the Kuwagamon effortlessly sliced through his upper arm almost to the bone. Only the timely intervention of his green... companion? Had saved him from being cut in half entirely. He was bleeding heavily, his arm felt slick and wet from the blood, not to mention useless. He could barely lift the arm, much less use it.

The Kuwagamon pulled around for another strafing run. This was it. With his arm in its current condition there was no way he could move fast enough to get away; and neither he, nor the green creature several feet away from him had enough strength to fight Kuwagamon off. This was it. Izzy's mind flashed back to the mauled body that he had seen drop from the sky a few days ago. At least now he knew what had happened to his classmate. At least his parents would havevclosure once it happened to him. Izzy stared at Kuwagamon, determined to meet his death with dignity.

"V-Nova Blast!" Just as Izzy had resigned himself to death, a giant beam of energy suddenly sailed out from the tree cover knocking kuwagamon out of the sky. Izzy looked around frantically. Was it another enemy? He grabbed Wormmon awkwardly with his remaining usable arm and got ready to run at the slightest provocation away from both where kuwagamon had landed and from where the fireball had exited the forest. There was a rustling in the forest as something exited the treeline and entered the clearing. Izzy darted away running as fast as he could... for all of three steps before he tripped on a rock and tumbled to the ground, the injured wormmon tumbling from his grip.

"You must be new here." it was a kid, the voice belonged to another kid, one Izzy's age, if not a year or two older. He was dressed in a t-shirt that had been turned into a camouflage pattern through applications of grass stains and mud, he wore a pair of brown shorts, and his large spiky hairdo was held back from his face with a pair of blue rimmed goggles. "My name's Tai. Come with me if you want to live."


	2. Chapter 1: Somewhere only we Know

Between the adrenaline wearing off, the pain, and the shock, the rest of Izzy's first day in the digital world was something of a blur. Izzy wasn't sure what was real and what was hallucination, did he really talk to a giant green insect creature? Was he really almost killed by a giant red... Kuwagamon? He remembered Tai, but was there really a giant blue dragon monster with him? The sight that greeted Izzy as he woke up didn't help to clear thing up at all. He was in a primitive shelter, made from boughs of the same unreal trees as yesterday, on a bed made out of sticks and leaves. Off to the side, the strange green creature from yesterday was sleeping on a similar bed to his own. But what drew his attention was the young man holding a mostly empty first aid kit. The kid looked older than him, by a year or two at least, and was tall for his age. He wore a set of wire rimmed glasses on his face, and his blue hair looked like it had been cut sensibly once, but though it remained the same length, was now wild from lack of care.

"Oh, you're awake." the older child breathed a sigh of relief. "That was a nasty wound Kuwagamon gave you. I wasn't sure how long you'd take to recover in this world. At least we don't have to worry about infections."

"This world?" Izzy asked, glancing back at the green creature. It seemed that the event of yesterday may not have been a fever dream after all

"The digital world. At least, that's what the digimon call it. From what we've been able to gather, it seems to be a world where computer data and not atoms, are the fundamental building blocks of life."

"That's incredible! The scientific implications of such a discovery are limitless!" Izzy responded stunned.

"Don't get too excited. Science only really matters back home in the real world, and as far as we can tell, there's no way back." The older boy paused. "I'm Jyou by the way."

Izzy wanted to argue, to correct the boy about the value of science, but the weight of the information Jyou had just revealed struck him like a high speed bullet train.

"No way back?" Izzy's mind went blank. No way back meant no way to see his parent, no way to attend school, no way to see his friends. Izzy's thoughts ran wild taking in the data he already had, the monsters, the strange devices he and the murdered boy from a few weeks ago shared, the makeshift nature of the shelter he found himself in.

"That, may not be entirely true." Izzy paused unsure if this was the best way to broach the subject. "About a week or two ago, I saw someone with a device almost exactly like this." Izzy held up the device he had found in his hand when he arrived.

"You saw a kid with a digivice in the real world?" Jyou asked, astonished.

Izzy winced. "Not exactly." Izzy breathed in deeply, there was no easy way to say this, so he might as well just blurt it out. "I saw a kid's body. He looked like he had been torn apart by some sort of wild animal."

"Isamu..." Jyou muttered shocked. "He vanished around the same time here trying to protect his brother Ken from Devimon's slaves." Jyou paused. "He's dead then. They're probably all dead." Jyou's gaze turned from Izzy. His voice sounded hollow. "I need to tell the others about this... We had wondered... Ruki said they probably just returned home." Jyou laughed bitterly. "I guess she was right after all. I'll be back later to check up on you again, but I need to tell the others first." Jyou staggered through the entryway of the shelter.

"It'll take him some time to get back I think, after news like that." Izzy perked up, he hadn't spoken, and there was no one else in the room with him. He glanced around quickly trying to find the source of the voice.

"Down here." the voice came from the other bed. Izzy looked down, it was the green insect creature.

"I'm Wormmon." The creature introduced itself. "And you're one of the chosen children."

Izzy thought back, had his parents ever mentioned anything about giant talking insects? "Koushirou Izumi. Izzy for short." Well, it probably wouldn't hurt to be polite. "What's going on? What exactly is this world? What are you? And, what do you mean, 'Chosen Children'?"

Wormmon scrunched his eyes, his purple beak chittering as it considered the best way to answer Izzy's question. "I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'What's going on?', you're resting after a Kuwagamon attacked us yesterday, and it appears that you're fairly new to the 'Digital World' as Jyou calls it." Wormmon paused. "As for your other questions... This world is the Digital World, as opposed to the human world. I'm not sure how it works precisely in your world, but here everything is made of data. Digimon consume data to grow, and evolve. Not all data is compatible with all digimon though, some digimon can consume plant type data, and some digimon are only able to process the data of other digimon. As one of the Chosen Children, you can help us evolve faster. A digimon bonded to a Chosen Child can absorb almost any type of data. And their bonded child can cause them to evolve temporarily using a pseudodata stream, made up partially of data, and partially whatever makes up your world. You need to be bonded to a chosen child just to tolerate the stream. I saw one Chosen a while back use it to weaken an enemy while the Chosen's digimon finished it off. In return for the benefits of bonding to a chosen child, the digimon defends the chosen child from harm. As for me, I'm Wormmon, a child level insect-type digimon." Wormmon paused, unsure how to continue. "I used to be Minomon before I Evolved."

Izzy blinked, assimilating the information. Pseudodata streams? Evolution? Bonding? "I need to sit down."

Wormmon looked at Izzy oddly. "You already are sitting down Izzy."

"Oh. Good then." Izzy replied blinking. This was too much to take in right now. He was trapped in another world where death seemed to be the only way out with giant talking insects, some of whom wanted to eat him. Today was not a good day.

Wormmon watched the chosen child, Izzy. He seemed incredibly distressed. Perhaps now wasn't the best time to ask Izzy to bond with him.

The central structure of the camp was silent in the wake of Jyou's announcement.

"So, there is a way home?" Tai asked, just to clarify. The room was small, ramshackle, and filled with kids. All of whom were looking at Tai in shock.

"Didn't you listen to a word I said? The only way home that we know of requires you to die first!" Jyou reacted angrily.

Tai shook his head. "I understand that Jyou, but you're not looking at the whole picture. There's a way back. That means the worlds are linked somehow. And where there's one way in there may be another. We just need to find it!"

Shock echoed throughout the room. "Talking about going home is useless. We need to stop chasing dreams and start working on making this world safe first. Another way home is useless if I die before we find it." Every eye turned to the girl who had just spoken. Ruki's red hair swayed as she spoke, emphasizing each nod of her head with a grand flourish. The girl was dressed simply. A pair of jeans, the knees and worn away through frequent use. A t-shirt with a faded vaguely heart shaped logo. A sturdy pair of hiking boots adorned her feet, and hanging from her belt in a holster was a large survival knife.

"We can't waste time on fanciful dreams when we're in danger now. We need to deal with the threat of wild digimon trying to eat us first, then we can go looking for a way home that may not even exist." Ruki emphasized.

"You're right, Ruki." Jyou responded, attempting to be the voice of reason. "There are very real threats in this world. And they've already taken too many of us." Jyou paused. "That's why we need to look for another way home first and foremost. The only thing starting a war with the local wildlife will get us is more casualties. Isamu, Floramon, Penmon, Taiki, Masaru, not to mention the others. We can't afford to keep on like this. We need to find a way out of here while we still can."

A girl spoke up, her head lowered, her large pink cowboy hat shading it from view. "Tai and Jyou are right Ruki. More fighting won't get us anything besides more pain." Mimi, for that was the girl's name, argued.

Ruki looked around the room, her eyes blazing. "Is that how it is then?"

"Ruki," The final boy in the room started.

"Save it goggle head. You're just going to agree with whatever your idol says anyway." Ruki interrupted before the goggle head, Takato, could utter another word. "I'll be back later. Don't wait up."

Ruki stormed out of the central shelter, unholstering her knife as she walked to the edge of the compound and into the dense forest beyond.

Prior to encountering the digital world, Takato had always been a bit of a nerd. His days were spent playing card games with his friends and helping his parents out at the bakery his family owned. Between his parents and his friends he had never really found time for sports or other strenuous activity, and though he wasn't fat, when he arrived in the digital world he hadn't really been in good shape either. All of that changed when Takato met Taichi Yagami.

Takato had arrived in this world a month ago the same way everyone else did, in a giant pillar of light that alerted every digimon within a mile of him exactly where he was. He was cold, disoriented, wet, and very shortly thereafter he was running for his life from a giant lobster monster.

Those first few minutes were the most terrifying of Takato's entire life. Being ripped from the streets of Shinjuku and tossed onto a beach lined with telephone poles was confusing enough, but when Ebidramon burst from the shallow water like a horror movie monster, the shock was almost too much for the young boy. Takato was off running before he fully realized what had happened, but his legs were unused to fleeing from murderous sea monsters by dashing across the sand, and Takato tripped. Sand flew into his eyes, blinding the world from view. It was hopeless, he was going to die, ripped apart by a giant lobster. He couldn't see, he couldn't run. His last chance at survival gone, Takato broke down and wept blindly on the sand, oblivious to the world surrounding him.

Takato wept for what seemed like hours before finally coming to his senses and looking up. There was a boy there, standing right in front of him looking down at him unworried.

"You done crying?" the boy asked. His tone was simple, no condemnation, no unease, the voice of someone who had dealt with others breaking down enough times to be a bit numb to the spectacle.

Takato stared at the other boy, his hair was the same shade of brown as Takato's, and just as messy though almost twice as ling, and held back by a pair of blue rimmed goggles, like the pair Takato himself wore. "Yeah." Takato responded, a bit unsure just what to feel at this sudden turn of events. "I'm done."

The other kid smiled. "Good. Crying's not wrong, but it won't help you much here. I'm Taichi Yagami, but you can call me Tai, for short."

"Takato, Takato Matsuda, but Takato for short."

Tai laughed at Takato's response. "Heh. You'll fit in fine. Come on, follow me, it isn't safe out here." Tai paused. "Oh and Takato? Next time you find yourself running from enemy digimon, try putting your goggles over your eyes next time, they do nothing strapped to your forehead."

Izzy couldn't help but feel a bit surprised when his rescuers walked through the doorway. He had not seen Tai, or his giant blue dragon dinosaur since they had rescued him. While the dinosaur dragon at Tai's side now barely reached the goggle-wearing boy's shoulders, the similarities between the two creatures were prominent enough that Izzy felt fairly confident in assuming that the two were the same, or at least related.

"So, I heard Jyou ran out on you before he could answer all your questions." Tai paused. "Yesterday was kind of eventful, and I'm not sure how much you remember, you went kind of fuzzy at the end. So lets start at the beginning again. I'm Tai, and this is V-Mon, and you're in what we've taken to calling the digital world. Any questions?"

Izzy stared at his rescuer, he seemed remarkably cool headed for a kid trapped in a bizarre alternate world full of creatures that wanted to kill him. Izzy had so many questions he didn't know where to start. "What do I need to know?"

Tai laughed. "To the point, I like that." Tai looked at Wormmon, still laying on his bed, and then to V-Mon. "You look like you've recovered, are you up for a walk? V-Mon will keep your friend company while we're gone."

Izzy nodded. "I feel remarkably well actually, considering my injuries."

Tai nodded, walking out the door. Izzy followed him quickly, not wanting to be left behind.

"You should feel better, that's not unusual here." Tai mentioned as Izzy exited the shelter. "This world's really messed up." Tai waved his hand at the sky for emphasis."You wouldn't think so at first, but it is."

Tai paused an looked Izzy directly in the eyes. "You know we don't have to eat here? We get hungry, but.. Well, I went for almost a month without eating when I first got here with almost no problems. Other than the hunger and my wounds not healing, that is."

Izzy looked at the wild-haired boy in shock. "We're not growing either. No one is getting taller, no one's hair is growing. And if you get injured, you heal strangely, if you haven't eaten recently you won't heal at all, and if you have eaten?"

Tai paused to take a deep breath."It's weird. The edges of your wound get sort of blocky and seal together. You don't scab over, you just heal leaving an odd scar behind." Tai pointed to Izzy's arm, the same arm which Kuwagamon had ripped open the previous day.

Izzy looked down, the skin of his arm was completely smooth, almost like he had never been injured, save for the scar; a long, jagged patch of skin lighter than the rest of his arm. The scar would be perfectly normal, save for two things; the rapid rate of healing, and the pixilated edges of the scar. Izzy ran his fingers over the scar. The new skin didn't feel the same. It tingled under his fingertips.

"That's... not normal." Izzy replied, staring at his arm in shock.

"Yeah. There are a couple other odd things about this place too. Odd symbols here and there, and there aren't any seasons. If it's winter in a place here it's always winter, if it's spring or summer it's always spring or summer." Tai paused, smiling. "And don't forget the digimon."

Izzy perked up. "What are they? The digimon, I mean?"

Tai laughed. "Your friend Wormmon probably knows as much, if not more than I do, but here it goes. They're Digimon, right? But that's short for 'Digital Monster', and they live up to the name. You've seen Wormmon and Kuwagamon, but they aren't all giant insects, My friend V-Mon is a dragon, and there are plenty of others, everything from talking plants to cyborgs, to giant flaming men. I'm pretty sure there's no limit to what digimon can become. I've even seen a giant pile of poop being ridden by a pink mouse before. So I really can't narrow it down any more than 'digital monsters' for you. But there are a few thing I can tell you about them."

Tai paused, gauging Izzy's expression, usually his description of Sukamon and his pal Chuumon got a disgusted response, but Izzy seemed just as eager for knowledge now as he did at the start of the conversation. "Alright," Tai continued, satisfied that he wasn't going to be boring his audience. "the first thing you need to know about digimon, after how dangerous they are is that they don't age the same way we do, they evolve. That's important When digimon talk about evolving, they don't just get more powerful, they also get more mature. V-Mon and Wormmon are both child level digimon, but that Kuwagamon that tried to eat you was an adult level, and I evolved V-Mon into V-dramon, his adult form, to fight him. There are other levels, eggs, and two different stages of babies, but for the most part they don't matter. What matter are child and adult digimon."

"Wait a second Tai," Izzy interrupted. "You said you evolved V-Mon Into his adult form?" Izzy asked, his interest piqued once more. "Wormmon mentioned that earlier."

Tai chuckled, "He would mention it, if he's a wild child level digimon then he probably wants you to bond with him. It's not a bad idea, but I'll leave that decision up to you."

"Wait," Izzy suggested, "stop for a second. Just what did Wormmon mean by chosen children, and what is bonding exactly?"

Tai laughed. "I suppose I should explain that much before leaving you to your decision. Here's the long and the short of it. We're the chosen children. Human kids chosen to b in the digital world. Don't ask me who or what chooses, if I knew I'd have punched them by now."

Tai paused, picking his words carefully. "As far as I know, that's what happens anyway. We're chosen, snatched out of the real world an given these." Tai produced a small squarish device with the corners scooped out and a square screen identical to Izzy's. "There's no grand destiny or quest. There's no ultimate evil to defeat. There's no wizard waiting for us to find him. Or, if there is they've all been frustratingly hard to find. Trust me, I've looked."

Tai sighed. "It's just as well, just surviving is hard enough without some ancient evil gunning for us."

"Well," Izzy replied, not quite sure what to make of Tai's tangent. "at least we don't have to deal with that then. But, if things are so simple, why did you say something about bonding, and making digimon evolve? There must be something more to it than just being chosen by some mysterious force..."

"Heh. Caught that did you? There is a bit more to it than that. As chosen children... Maybe it's because we're human, or maybe it's these weird gizmos we all have, but we have a few abilities you didn't have back home. Though that may just be because there were no Digimon back home?"

Tai sighed, "Anyway, here in the digital wold, we can form bonds with digimon. It's ridiculously easy to do so, either intentionally or by accident. You just need to make an agreement with a digimon to fight together. That includes yelling 'Help me!' and the digimon helping you. It also includes diving in front of an attack to save a digimon's life. Anything you do or say that could be taken as an agreement to fight together will form a contract, with a few exceptions. If you already have a bond? You're safe. You can't make another bond. It's the same if you make an agreement with an already bonded digimon. One bond at a time. No more."

Tai paused, appraising Izzy. "Honestly I'm a bit surprised that you didn't already form a bond with Wormmon. Most kids would already be bonded in your case."

Izzy shook his head, did he do anything that might start a bond with Wormmon? He didn't think so. Wormmon tried incredibly hard to save him, but Izzy hadn't asked for help or protection, he just wanted to know what exactly was going on. And he hadn't exactly protected Wormmon during the chase, slowing down and stopping as Wormmon pleaded with him to flee.

"Since you haven't made a bond yet, you should probably make one soon, before you end up stuck with a digimon you can't work with. You need protection here, only Ruki's brave enough to go without it. Well, her and Jyou, but it's different for him. His partner..."

Tai looked over at Izzy, trying to gauge how much of this was really sinking in. "Izzy. You need to be careful making your bond. Takato dived in front of a baby digimon to save it from being eaten and though he doesn't regret it, there's not much Dorimon can do to protect him. Taiki partnered with an adult digimon, who just happened to come along and fight the Shellmon attacking him at just the right time to save him. The thing is, after the battle, the digimon just left, leaving Taiki without a partner to protect him."

"Izzy, what I'm trying to say is, if you're gonna form a bond, you should get a child level digimon to bond with, one that'll actually try and protect you from harm."

Izzy nodded. "I see... I guess I'll talk to Wormmon about it when we get back."

Tai grinned. "Well, now that that's settled, how would you like to meet the rest of the kids here?"

Izzy smiled nervously. "That sounds fine to me."

"So, you want to bond with the kid, huh?" Wormmon looked up sharply in shock as V-Mon spoke.

"Was it that obvious?" Wormmon asked, embarrassed.

"A bit, yeah. Look, there aren't that many kinds of digimon that go after chosen children. There are some who wanna consume 'em and absorb their data to get more powerful, and there're those who wanna join forces and bond with one of 'em to get more powerful. There're exceptions, of course, but basically that's it. Other digimon just don't get involved intentionally otherwise."

"You're right. I ran into Izzy because I wanted to bond with a chosen child. Also, Kuwagamon was chasing me." Wormmon paused, "Is that wrong?"

V-Mon laughed. "Wrong? No. You were being chased, you saw a solution..." V-Mon paused, before smiling at the green insect digimon. "It's not wrong at all, in fact, I like it. It's like Tai's idea of a plan, find the problem then run up and punch it in the face."

Wormmon looked on in shock. "Punch it in the face? You don't mean that he actually runs up to adult level digimon and punches them, do you?"

V-Mon looked at Wormmon in confusion. "Of course I do! Digimon, fallen trees, stubborn chosen children, fish... It's a good solution. Sometimes he has to use more than one punch, but you'd be surprised how many problems it solves."

Wormmon's expression was frozen in a grimace of shocked dismay. Trees didn't even have faces, and fish...

"Don't worry Wormmon, I'm sure after talking to Tai Izzy'll be happy to bond with you. Tai's great at solving complex emotional problems."

Wormmon didn't think it was possible, but his grimace of shock grew even more dismayed.

"Takato, you still in here?" Tai called out as they entered the largest shelter in the camp.

"Yeah, Tai. I was just playing hide and seek with Dorimon Did you need my help for something?" A voice echoed back from within. Izzy watched as a young boy, crawled out from underneath a makeshift table. The kid's wild brown hair and the pair of goggles on his head made him look like Tai's younger brother

The voice sounded young, maybe a year younger than Izzy himself.

"I wanted to introduce you to our newest member, Izzy."

Takato looked up from his search, his eyes alighting on Izzy's form. "So wait, Tai is this the guy who told Jyou about Isamu?"

Tai nodded solemnly and Takato grimaced. "Well, it's great to meet you Izzy, despite the bad news. I'm sure Tai's already told you, but your news wasn't all bad anyway. It means that there's definitely at least one way back home, so there may be another, safer way back too."

"Takato..." a new voice emanated from underneath a pile of logs. Whatever had spoken seemed very small, almost like a three or four year old child. The voice was soft as well, questioning.

"Don't worry Dorimon, you can come out now." Takato responded to the plaintive cry. "Come meet our new friend Izzy with me, he just got here yesterday."

"I don' wanna meet some stupid human. I wanna play hide an' seek with Takato..." the voice whined from beneath the log pile.

Takato frowned. "Sorry about this Izzy, but Dorimon's still just a baby. He's still kind of selfish. I'm told he'll grow out of it when he evolves though."

Shaking his head, Takato smiled. "Well, it's nice to meet you anyway, even if Dorimon is being a brat. I don't suppose you watch you watch Super Agent Advance Force Go?"

Izzy recognized the name, it was a sentai series starring a crack team of secret agent businessmen who fought monsters from outer space using the special power suits and gadgets given to them by the company they worked for. He had seen a bit of an episode once last year, one of the good guys had driven off a roof in order to hit an alien with his car, which was on fire. His parents had shut the TV off telling him that shows like that would rot his brain. He hadn't seen another episode since.

"I'm sorry, my parents don't allow me to watch much TV..."

The look of disappointment on Takato's face was palpable. "Awww... I wanted to know if agent burnt sienna survived the fight against Marfalax. I've been here for almost a month I think, but you're the only new kid we've found since I got here."

Izzy frowned. That didn't make any sense. Izzy hadn't started hearing about the disappearances till a month ago, but he'd heard of about ten kids declared missing since then.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you Takato. I don't know what to say."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure the next kid will know what happened." Takato grinned, his melancholy vanishing as quickly as it appeared. "Do you have a partner digimon yet?" Takato asked.

Izzy shook his head. "Not yet..."

Takato smiled, a tinge of sadness coloring his eyes as he spoke. "If you can, bond with a child Digimon. Dorimon's great, but I can't exactly rely on him for protection and companionship like the others do. So I can't exactly go outside the camp much, or really help out if here's trouble. If you wait too long to form a bond, you may end up with a baby digimon, like me."

"Don't listen to Takato, Izzy. He helps out more than enough. Takato's the best cook here."

"After all the practice I get? I should be. I'm the only one who cooks here Tai." Takato laughed.

"Fair enough, Takato." Tai grinned. "Come on Izzy. Your friend Wormmon is probably waiting for us."  
_

In a thatched hut with an open roof, a girl wearing a massive pink cowboy hat stood vigil at the side of a makeshift bed. The bed, if you could really call it such bore more resemblance to a bed of flowers than any futon or creation of cloth and springs. Made of soft upturned dirt, the bed seemed a good fit for its single inhabitant, a girl made of plants, her head overhung with a large red flower pedal, her arms and legs massive collections of roots twined together.

"Still no changes?" the hut's final inhabitant, Jyou, asked, already knowing the answer.

"No. She's still unconscious."

"It's been a week..."

"Are you saying she won't recover?" the girl's voice was hollow, missing some vital spark of animation and worn barren with despair.

"I don't know. I'm a kid, not a doctor, and I know less about digimon than I do humans. Keep giving her water. She can't eat on her own, so that will have to do." Jyou paused. "She's not dead, but Mimi, if you need to talk..."

"I know Jyou, I know."  
_

Ruki grimaced as she stomped through the forest. The others couldn't understand how it felt to brave this new world, unable to rely on a partner for protection. They had no idea of the danger, the chaos that filled this world. No idea about the desperate need for order that everything about this world screamed out for. To an extent, the others were part of the problem. There was no order to the decisions of the group, nothing requiring any of the group to follow along with decisions they didn't like. To solve the problem, the others had succumbed to mob rule, making decisions as a group and giving everyone a say in the decision regardless of how much they knew, or how skilled they were.

Ruki frowned. No, trying to get home without first making sure that they would be safe in this world was pointless. They only knew of one way back so far, and if they didn't endure their own safety first, that would be the way they'd all end up heading back.

Wiping the sweat from her eyes, Ruki sighed. Now wasn't the time to dwell on this. She had work to do, spiral mountain was the highest point on the island, at the top she would be able to get information about the entire island. Information vital to her, and everyone else's safety; and that mountain wasn't about to climb itself. Gritting her teeth, Ruki began to climb out of the forest on the slopes of spiral mountain. No matter how often she made this trek it never got any more pleasant.

Wormmon looked up as Izzy and Tai returned to their makeshift shelter. "You're back!"

"Yeah," Tai responded to Wormmon's exclamation. "We weren't about to ditch you in the middle of our camp."

Tai glanced between the insect digimon and the new kid. "Look, it seems like you have some stuff you need to talk about, so V-Mon and I are gonna go try and catch some fish before it gets dark. Izzy, this hut's yours now. Nobody's used it since... well, there used to be a lot more of us."

V-Mon, taking the hint, grabbed Tai's elbow and started dragging him out the door. "Come on Tai! I can already smell the fish grilling!" After a few seconds, only Wormmon and Izzy remained.

An awkward silence stretched between the two figures remaining, both unsure of how to breach the subject to the other.

Izzy and Wormmon stared at each other, unwilling to be the first to speak. Finally Izzy broke the silence. "Tai said, that you wanted to bond with me?"

Wormmon nodded. "Yes. That was... is... what I want." Wormmon paused, nervous. "Please?"

Izzy took a second to think. He hardly knew Wormmon, and Wormmon hardly knew him. Izzy still didn't know enough, Tai had told him all the benefits and dangers, Takato had cautioned him about the importance of making his choice before it was made for him, neither had answered the question burning in his mind. "Why?"

Why indeed. Wormmon paused to think, was it to get stronger? Strong enough to defend himself from harm? strong enough to protect others? Partly. Ever since he had seen the chosen, Tai, he now realized, and his partner, V-Mon, fighting of their enemies he had wanted it, a bond, what they had together. No, Wormmon realized. It wasn't just the strength he wanted... "Companionship. All my life... All my life I've been alone, fighting and running and surviving alone. What Tai and V-Mon have, I wanted... No, I want that. I want someone to fight with, to fight for. Someone I can rely on, and who can rely on me." Wormmon paused. "Does that make sense?"

Companionship, Izzy marveled at the word. The young boy had never had many friends. He was awkward in social situations, and his attempts to compensate by demonstrating his intelligence hadn't helped at all. He'd had friends, acquaintances really. But never close friends, never companions, not like Wormmon had described it. A gnawing desire opened in his chest. Izzy wanted this, more than anything. His mouth moved before is brain could stop it, before reason or logic could change his course. "Wormmon, will you fight for me?"

Wormmon's eyes grew wide, everything he had ever wanted was within his grasp, and all he had to do was accept it. 'You won't be disappointed.' Wormmon silently promised, half to Izzy, and half to himself. "I will, I will fight for you."

Izzy's strange digital device glowed, light pouring out of it like a river as it flowed from the device into Wormmon. The air tingled, like a field just after a lightning strike. Izzy stared, the light was almost blinding but he couldn't look away. It had eddies and whorls within it, and there was something more... symbols. If he concentrated, he could just make out the outlines of strange and unfamiliar glyphs...

As quickly as it appeared, the light was gone.

The room left behind in the aftermath of their bond was identical to the room prior. Even the metallic stench of ionized air had vanished with the river of light. But for the two inhabitants, everything had changed. Wormmon could feel new strength flowing through his body, the lingering pain and soreness acquired during yesterday's frantic flight was gone, and in its wake the absence of pain tingled like its own unique sensation. Izzy, on the other hand was less concerned with matters of the flesh than he was with the strange phenomenon he had observed. The glyphs were gone, but although the boy could not remember what they looked like, speculations about their nature and what the glyphs had done ran wild through his brain.

Although it was almost dusk, for two new companions, a new day had just dawned. "Wormmon, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."


End file.
